“I had a nice life. I had my loft and my little boat and my friends — a few friends — and I was collecting cool artists like the Starn brothers and John Currin . . . but I spent most of my nights at home, or going to clubs by myself, trying to look like the group I wanted to be part of. But nobody wanted me. I was a washout . . . until all of a sudden Miriam Blaylock starts taking an interest. In me! I was totally impressed, Sarah.” She choked back a sob.
To her credit, she did not break down, which is what Sarah had thought was going to happen. She raised her head, stuck out her chin, and said, “What we have to do is pretty damn simple.”
“It is indeed.”
She took out the fleam, handed it to Sarah. “You know how to use this; I don’t.”
Sarah opened it. “You hook the end in behind the vessel, then jerk it toward you. The blood’ll come out in a stream. You get your mouth over it and just keep swallowing as fast as you can.”
“What if I throw up?”
“You won’t. You’re carrying around a pint of Miri’s blood in your veins. It’ll be like taking the most intense drug you’ve ever known. It makes the most powerful horse ever sold seem like aspirin.”
“He’ll go nuts when he gets stuck. I mean, he’s gonna feel it, Sarah.”
“I’ll do the incision. All you have to do is cover the wound with your mouth and suck as hard as you possibly can.”
“He’ll fight.”
“It’s not like that if you’re fast. They lose consciousness in a couple of seconds.”
“You better do it.”
“You need to eat! If you don’t, her blood’s going to start destroying yours. You’ll go into shock.”
“I’ll die?” She actually sounded hopeful, as if she thought it might be a welcome release. Sarah thought of what was in the attic.
“Feeding draws the blood right out of the brain. He won’t even get a chance to yell.”
Leo looked to her with the gaze of a little sister, and Sarah realized that her feelings toward this kid were changing. She squeezed Leo’s hand, trying to reassure her. “You’re going to be perfect. The hard part is the incision, and I’m doing that.” “It’s quiet,” Leo said, looking toward the closed door of Miriam’s bedroom.
“He’s sleeping.”
“But she isn’t?”
“No.”
Miri only slept after she fed. Since she hadn’t, she would be completely conscious the whole time.
“You stay at the door, Leo. Come in at my signal.”
Sarah went into the bedroom, her fleam concealed in her blouse. Paul was as comatose as a mouse-stuffed snake. Miri was cuddled up to him like a schoolgirl with her first lover.
She looked so happy, eyes closed, face blissful. She was nuzzling his chest hair.
When Miri saw Sarah, she gave her a secret, delighted smile. Sarah went to her and stroked her hair, which was twice as full as it had been even a few hours ago. The Keeper body was astonishing in its ability to regenerate and restore itself. Sarah had been fascinated to find out how it all worked. Some nature somewhere had evolved this wonderfully regenerative organism, but it had not been earthly nature. Miriam had never told Sarah where they had come from, only that it was the stars. Why they had appeared here, as colonists or refugees, or — as Sarah suspected — on some far more exotic mission involving the evolution of species, she would not discuss, and perhaps did not know.
Sarah went around the far side of the bed from Miri. She hated so to hurt her, but this had to be done, and there was no time to waste. Poor Miri could be foolish in love. It was her one failing. Sarah had been the victim of some of that foolishness, but also the beneficiary of its indulgence, for which she was profoundly grateful. Miri’s love also lasted. In the past twenty years, she had probably spent ten million dollars on Sarah’s scientific efforts, even indulging her struggle to see if she could remove the Keeper blood that Miri herself had put in her veins.
Sarah slipped into the bed. Paul’s back was to her, his form concealing her from Miri’s vision. She stretched out against him.
“Isn’t he wonderful?” Miri whispered.
“He’s certainly big.”
Sarah brought out the fleam, then drew the narrow silver blade with the hooked end out of its ivory sheath. Using the delicate tips of her surgeon’s fingers, she found his jugular.
The pulse was excellent. He was going to be an extraordinary first meal for Leo. In fact, there’d be plenty for Sarah, too. She could top off that weak old woman and maybe get a month more time before she needed to feed again.
This was one kill that she wasn’t going to mind. How strange her heart was, to want to kill an enemy of Miri’s who had literally stolen her from herself. But she loved Miri at least as much as she hated her. She didn’t think of herself as a lesbian — she had no interest in Leo, for example — but what Miri had done for her in the car on the way to the club had been wonderful beyond words, so fulfilling that it seemed to literally feed the soul. Not even with Tom had it been like it was with Miri.
This love across the border of species was deeply awful, yes, but somehow also deeply sacred. For all of her anger and all of her striving to escape her fate, Sarah knew that she would always be here, always in the end choosing her Miri over freedom, over death, over everything.
She rose into a sitting position. Now she could see Miri, whose eyes were closed, whose lips reflected deep happiness — deep and pitiful.
She motioned to Leo, who came quickly to her side. Sarah gestured toward the sleeping man, then toward Leo’s mouth. Leo nodded. On her face was a child’s expression of fascination.
With the quickness of long practice, Sarah slit the vein. Blood spurted, and she pressed Leo’s head against the wound.
She did surprisingly well, sucking with ferocious energy.
“He’s out,” Sarah said, as Paul’s body sagged.
But then a shock like an explosion went through the huge body. Sarah heard air rush into the lungs. Leo was sucking hard, but he was most certainly not out.
On the contrary, he roared out his pain and surprise. Miri screamed, too, and leaped back away from them.
Still roaring, with Leo stuck to him like a stubborn leech, Paul lumbered up off the bed and started pulling at her, trying to rip her off him. She was not going to be pulled off, though. She sucked, he screamed, he staggered, Miri screamed.
Obviously, this man was not like ordinary men. Somehow, this man had remained conscious through a sudden and total loss of intercranial blood pressure. Somehow, this rather easy kill had become a disaster.
He lurched across the room, trying to peel Leo off. Her eyes were wide and she remained stuck tight. It was the blood, Sarah knew, the incredible effect of the blood. Her first taste had driven her almost mad with pleasure, and she would fight off the devil before she would stop sucking it out of him.
Sarah also knew that this monster was not going to be killed. She raced out of the bedroom.
Leo was hardly even aware of what was happening. This blood — it was a miracle, it tasted like sunlight, like heaven. Every gulp of it went gushing into her starved cells, filling her with energy and power and buzzing thrills.
Then strong arms — really strong arms — came around her and yanked her off. Paul dropped to his knees, his neck spurting. He was gasping, he was swaying — and then he reached out and grabbed Leo’s wrist and drew her down to him. He tried to speak but nothing came out. But the look of hatred on his face was something phenomenal, something unnatural. He was like some kind of hell creature, this man.
Miri grabbed her away from him and screamed directly in her face, a banshee wail. “He’s of my kind,” she shrieked. “Of my kind!”
A high-voltage shock of total surprise flashed through Sarah, who had returned to the bedside. She was saying that this man . . . was a Keeper? This man?
He rose up, his eyes blazing. He tore a newel post off the bed and swung it. It whistled past Leo, nearly hitting her. Then
he swung it at Miri, who ducked easily. It shattered instead against the wall with such force that the whole house shook.
He leaped on Miri. His hands tightened like a vise around her neck. Leo grabbed his arms, but he could not be dislodged. No matter the blood he had lost and was still losing, he was as strong as iron.
“He’s killing her,” she screamed. She beat on his back. Miri’s eyes came bulging out of her head. Leo screamed, she cried, she hauled at the iron arms. Miri’s face was disintegrating, her mouth returning to its natural shape, the prosthetics that altered her appearance popping out. Then the compression of her throat forced her tongue between her lips. It appeared, black and pointed, gorged with blood. His own blood was still spraying out of his neck, spattering her with a red shower.
Leo hit him and hit him, but he was totally fixed on this; he was like a robot programmed to kill.
Suddenly there was a terrific, blinding blast and he dropped like a stone. Leo threw herself between him and Miri, who went to her feet coughing and rubbing her neck.
Sarah stood quietly, the magnum in her hands.
Miri staggered. Then she threw herself on him; she turned him over, tried to stop his bleeding. “Help us,” she screamed.
“Miri, let her feed! Let her take him!”
“You’re a doctor! Help us!”
“Miri, he’s dangerous! He’s got to be killed, come on!”
“Save him, Sarah! Please!”
“Miri, no! Leo, take him!”
Miriam leaped up, and before Sarah could stop her, she had tossed Leo across the room like a rag doll. Then she yanked the magnum out of Sarah’s hands.
Sarah prepared to die.
But Miriam stuck the gun in her own mouth. She screwed her eyes shut.
This would not kill her, but it would leave her too damaged to recover. In the end, Sarah would have to stop her heart.
“Miri, no!”
“Then help him.”
Sarah knelt to the unconscious form, stemmed the bleeding from his jugular with a finger. His eyes were fully rolled back, and he was seizing from blood loss and shock. He had probably five minutes, maybe less.
“We’ve got to get him downstairs,” Miri said. She tossed the gun aside.
Miriam carried his shoulders, Sarah his feet. They took him to the lift in the front hall, squeezed in with him while Leo raced ahead on the stairs. She had the examination table dressed with a sheet by the time they reached the surgery.
He was in deep shock now. “This is going to be a problem,” Sarah said. She slapped a pressure bandage on his neck. The flow had dropped by two-thirds. His blood pressure must be almost nothing. “I’m losing him.”
Miriam burst into tears, threw herself on him.
“Get her off,” Sarah said to Leo.
But when Leo touched her, she threw back her head and howled with an agony beyond anything Sarah had heard from her or anybody ever. She’d never seen her like this, crazy with grief, her emotions like an exploding volcano.
“Leo, have you ever assisted in a surgery?”
“God no.”
Sarah took Miri’s shoulders. “Miri, can you hear me? Miri!”
Slowly, by what looked like tormented inches, a more sane expression returned to her face. “You did not have the right to take him.” Her eyes flashed with a ruler’s pride. “You did not have the right!”
“Please forgive me,” Sarah said.
“Then save him! Save him!”
Sarah stabilized the neck wound, then got them to turn him over on his stomach. The entry point of the bullet was below the heart. If the artery was intact, he might have a chance. She couldn’t type his blood, there was no time, so she had to go with O+. She told Leo, “Get me six pints of blood from the fridge. Miri, set him up.” While they worked, she went to the cupboard and took out her instruments. She had a complete surgery here, even an extractor for bullets. She had once promised Miri, “If I can get you here, I can fix it, no matter what may befall you.”
There was an X-ray machine, but there was no way they could move him to the table now. There was no time. “Scalpel,” Sarah said as she swabbed the entry wound with Betadine. A glance told her that Miri had set the blood properly.
If he was really a Keeper of some unknown kind, she was flying almost totally blind. In Sarah’s own veins, Miriam’s blood functioned like a separate organ. It flowed with Sarah’s natural blood, but did not mix with it. It could not. Sarah could not even begin to guess what was going on in this man.
She dissected around the entry wound, opening it wider and wider, snapping orders. “Spreaders!” she called when she reached the rib cage. “Clamp!” she said when she found torn blood vessels.
She could not entirely save the lung, but she managed to isolate the bleeding enough to resect. Time disappeared for her. She concentrated totally, remembering her training and her work experience from so many years ago. Her fingers worked sometimes almost by magic, but for the most part it was her careful training that saw her through this terribly challenging procedure without — she hoped — a serious error.
When she could at last close him up, his blood pressure had risen to 80 over 50 and his pulse was 160. A temperature of just 99 suggested that he was tolerating the transfused blood well. She put him on an electrolyte drip, then got her prescription pad. She wrote for some time, then handed it to Leo. “They’ll have all this in the drugstore at Riverside Hospital.” “What’s the situation?” Miriam asked. Her blood-spattered robe still hung off her naked body. Her face was hollow, her skin gray.
“He’s hanging on.”
Miriam’s face twisted, and she threw herself sobbing into Sarah’s arms.
“Oh, baby,” Sarah said, “baby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know . . .”
“There was an attempt to cross the species, recorded in the Books ten conclaves ago. Keepers trying to escape from the need to eat human blood. The result wasn’t good. We’d created human beings with the speed and power of Keepers. So we destroyed all the family lines, except one. We found a last survivor about forty years ago. He was destroyed. Apparently he had a son.”
“I don’t think this is true, Miri. There’s no way we could interbreed. We’re as different as tigers and cattle, except on the surface.”
“You have no idea what our science was capable of — when we had a science.”
“What happened to your science?”
Miriam regarded her. She laughed a little, and Sarah sensed a whole hidden history in that laughter, a history of secrets that would never be told. “It was so good to be with him; it was like going back to the one time in all my life that I was truly and deeply happy. Oh, Sarah, I love him so!”
Sarah found herself hoping that the pregnancy was real. Because if this was true, and it was a healthy fetus, then maybe the great hope of Miriam’s life was being realized.
But still Sarah saw Paul to be mortal danger, and Leo was stationed to watch his monitors.
“How about your hunger?” Miriam asked her.
“I got some blood,” she said. But Leo’s hollow expression told them both that it had not been enough.
Sarah took Miriam back upstairs, to their private room. They turned on the video system so she could watch the infirmary every moment.
She lay back on the little sofa where she so often read and worked. Sarah knelt beside it. “Please forgive me, Miri.”
Miriam gazed at her. “I forgive you, child,” she said. “But you must help me with this.”
“Miri, he hates you. And he’s a killing machine.”
“He has a heart, Sarah, a huge heart. I want my chance to try to reach his heart.”
“When he wakes up, Miri, God knows what’ll happen.”
“I want you to help me. Both of you.”
“Of course we will. That goes without saying.”
Miriam went over and picked up the encaustic painting of her lost Eumenes. “I left my happiness in another world.”
/>
“We have happiness.”
She smiled a little.“I’m the last of my kind, you know — the last Keeper.”
“There are others.”
Miriam looked at her. “Living in holes? That’s not being a Keeper — a true ruler of mankind.” She gazed at the portrait of the handsome young man in his white toga. “I’m lost in time.” She put it down and came back to Sarah. “But I have a baby. I have hope.”
Sarah did not know what Miriam had in her belly, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. If this much-shattered heart took another blow, it was even possible that Miriam would join her peers in the shadows, living like an animal and waiting — no doubt hoping — to die.
“I want a pregnancy test.”
Sarah played for time. “As soon as Paul recovers.”
“No, no,” Miriam said. “You’ll do it immediately.”
“I need the resources of the infirmary for him.”
Miriam came to her. “You can do the test and we both know it.”
Sarah took her in her arms.
“I have to know,” Miriam whispered. Sarah hugged her tight.
They stayed like that, in the declining light of the afternoon.
Leo paced to the wall and back to the door, and she remembered chocolate icebox pie and blinis and blintzes and beluga. She went to the back windows and wiped off her sweat and remembered Mommy’s chicken fricasee and Aunt Madeline’s molasses cookies. She slapped the wall and hugged herself and sweated rivers and remembered rib eyes at Sparks and smoked salmon at Petrossian.
But all that really mattered was the raw, delicious taste in her mouth and the smell in her nose of blood, blood, blood.
When she’d drunk his blood, she’d drunk his soul, and she was drunk on it and she had to have more of it.
Her jeans were soaked with pee, her underarms and hair were awash, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think because she needed more, she wasn’t finished — she wanted a lovely bowl of cherry cobbler, but she needed blood.
She went to the black front door, put her hand on the gleaming brass handle, and she pushed out into the flaring evening. The city was its ordinary self, humming its indifferent hum, traveling down its million uncaring roads.